I am tired of spoiled brats, bullying, and spiteful kids.  I’m sick and tired of parents who think their kids are perfect and they can do no wrong.  Sorry, I’ve watched your kids do horrible things and you were not anywhere in sight. 

     As a child, my bedroom didn’t have a TV, computer, and a phone.  I didn’t even have my own room, I shared a room with two sisters.  I didn’t have my own room until I was in the ninth grade.  The only entertainment in there was a bookcase full of books.  Still, being sent to our room was not the worst punishment.  I don’t see being sent to the child of today’s room as a punishment at all unless all electronics are removed first.

     We had a curfew too, “be within sight of the house when the street lights go on.”  Dad checked too.  If we weren’t right outside the house, all hell broke loose.  School nights, we were inside by eight and in bed by nine.  This was rough on a night owl like me.  

     If we broke the rules we got punished.  Grounded, spanked, sent to our rooms, sent to our rooms with no dinner, required to pay reparations for any damages from our own pockets or by some form of physical labor–these were the common punishments.  What did these punishments do for us?  They taught us consequences for our actions.  The worse our actions, the worse the punishment.

     Looking at many kids today and how they act in public gives us a huge clue that ‘time outs’ and ‘using our words’ doesn’t work.

     Being told to ‘go cut a switch’ by our Grandfather or Grandmother was the worst punishment we could think of on any day.  It wasn’t so much the two or three swats we got from the switch, it was the process of having to cut one that hurt more. It especially worked well when you had a grandfather like ours who made you go back several times to get a ‘good one’ before the swats.  And they were swats not beatings.  Some psychological stress and a little sting on our butts brought us into line quickly.

     It didn’t teach us to be physically violent with others.  In fact, if we were physically violent with pets or people, that came under the list of the worst things we could do, thus the punishment was the harshest.

     I think if you heard “oh, boy you’re gonna get it now” in your head when you only thought of doing something wrong, they were doing something right. 

     You all have a good one!